The Legal Orphans of Voldemort Edict or LOVE
by Hidden Relevance
Summary: After the war, a new law brings a variety of new students into the halls of Hogwarts. Series of drabbles- many characters!


**I recently started plotting out a series of OCs with a couple dear friends of mine. I love them, but we hadn't really been able to work out how to fit them into the Potterverse as a whole. Yestarday, though, as a finished up a choker for Casi (aka Serenthia) I had a brainstorm.**

**The Legal Orphans of Voldemort Edict (or L.O.V.E.) is my own little twist on the Marriage Law concept mixed up with the Orphan Works Act that's been wandering around the internet as well. Either way! I think it's fun, and you're welcome to borrow the Edict, as long as you let me see what you do with it!**

**(and of course, the Edict and OCs are the ONLY thing I own here- le sigh) **

Potions Master Severus Snape was in a foul mood. He stormed out of Headmaster McGonagal's office after their weekly meeting, sure that the witch had finally lost her mind.

_A gift?_ he sneered to himself. _It is not enough that they've stuck me with the little chit, but now I owe her a gift?_ He stalked down the halls toward his basement study and potions lab, desperate to escape the student-filled halls. Their shrieking laughter was not what he needed to calm himself. He reached the door and, with a savage flick of his wand, lowered the wards and entered, still shaking his head.

He felt the wards resume around him and sighed, finally relaxing a fraction. "What in the bloody hell does she think I know about giving gifts to children?" He sank down into his favorite armchair to think. There'd be no getting around it, he knew. Minerva had been adamant, and Severus could not remember anyone who'd manage to succeed in arguing with her in the past. Whether it was a foreign apprentice to cover her classes or a certain unhappily not of the dead potions master to return to her employ as an advanced intructor, when Minerva McGonagal wanted it, she generally got it.

And now, apparently, she wanted Severus to present a gift to his new ward, to celebrate their "family." The headmaster had lost it. Severus groaned; he was fairly sure the entire wizarding world had lost it. In the aftermath of Voldemort's death, there'd been a slew of new laws and edicts laid down in an attempt to repair some of the tremendous damage caused by the Dark Lord. Most of them, he'd managed to evade during his convalesence at Hogwarts. After all, the wizarding world still didn't quite know what to make of the man they'd-thought-they-knew-to-be-a-traitor and simply chose to ignore his existence.

Until this newest one- the Legal Orphans of Voldemort Edict, or L.O.V.E. as it was affectionately known. Severus sneered; it could only have been a Hufflepuff who'd come up with such an obnoxious concept. Though... on second thought- "It would need to have been an exceptionally brave one to openly state the Dark Lord's name even after his death." Severus chuckled. "Perhaps only a very stupid Gryffindor." He sobered, either way, it was this law that had caused his current problem. According to the edict, all adult wizards were required to take into their households one of the many children now orphaned after the war.

Even, apparently, Severus Snape himself.

Serenthia, now Snape, was quite possibly the most hyperactive girl he'd ever come across. The young American was also now his ward and a new student at Hogwarts. "However did she become a Slytherin, anyway?" Severus muttered. None of his other students had ever been so infernally bouncy. He sighed and moved to his lab; perhaps he'd manage to think of something there.

"What would a young girl even like?" he mused, already puttering about. He'd recently recieved a new shipment of supplies, he noticed. They'd need organizing. He opened the first box of bottles only to raise an eyebrow at its contents. "Whatever have we here?" There must have been some mistake- the bottles were absolutely tiny, and some of them seemed to have some sort of loop in the cork as if they were intended to hang from something.

He snarled; he'd have to send the blasted things back. He began to close the box and then stopped and removed one of the bottles. "Meant to hang, hmm?" Didn't young girls like jewelry? He smiled slowly; this would be most appropriate.

**Well that's the first of the little drabbles I have planned for the L.O.V.E. verse! Hope you enjoy!**


End file.
